SynopsisDenzel Washington and Star Trek’s Chris Pine star in this action thriller from director Tony Scott. The plot surrounds two locomotive operators who team up to stop a runaway train filled with explosives.

Despite Denzel Washington’s inclination to do the right thing in his personal life, he knows how to define violence as an actor.

He was a convincingly conniving heroin dealer in American Gangster, a dangerous avenger in Man On Fire, and he won an Oscar for his out-of-control corrupt cop in Training Day.

“I always say, you can’t be considered (for an Oscar) unless you have a good role, and good roles are hard to come by,” says the 55-year-old. “So I keep looking for them.”

He thinks he may have found another one. Washington has to dig deep to find his brutal side for his role in the post-apocalyptic action flick, The Book Of Eli.

Opening on Friday, the Hughes Brother film features Washington as Eli, the fierce and deadly guardian of a book that might lead to the resurrection of an anarchistic society, which has deconstructed into a wasteland of roving gangs and mobster fiefdoms.

On his walking journey to deliver the book, Eli battles thugs, cons and tricksters, but is tested the most severely by Carnegie (Gary Oldman) whose posse of bad guys captures, then tries to track down Eli after he escapes with his book and a member of the tribe (Mila Kunis).

Along the way, Eli’s savagery is intense, but Washington refuses to worry about his image, or expectations from fans, when he chooses a part. “Some of the characters I’ve played killed, but they’re not necessarily killers,” he says.

Some are, though. And he’s fine with that, too. He’s also comfortable doing what it takes to get prepared, and that was especially true for The Book Of Eli.

Washington suffered through six months of martial-arts conditioning and sword-and-knife training to look as lethal as his Eli character.

Still, there’s no question the part is a departure for the actor. He shared the screen last year with John Travolta in the subway thriller The Taking of The Pelham 123. But Travolta defined the sneering bad guy, while Washington played an average dude embroiled in the caper.

Before that, he directed and co-starred in The Great Debaters, playing a 1930s activist educator who leads an all-black college debating team to the U.S. finals. That was his second directorial foray. His first was Antwone Fisher in 2002.

Acting is his first love, however. And his acclaimed role as Brutus in the Broadway production of Julius Caesar showed his versatility, as did his breakthrough in the 1980s groundbreaking medical series St. Elsewhere.

While working on that series, he took breaks to make movies. Some of them, such as Carbon Copy, Hard Lessons and Power, didn’t quite work.

Others did, including Washington’s portrayal of the anti-apartheid political activist Steve Biko in director Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom, which earned the actor his first Oscar nomination for his supporting-actor effort.

A few year’s later, he scooped up an Academy Award for his supporting role as the defiant ex-slave soldier in Ed Zwick’s civil-war epic, Glory. And he never looked back.

“I’m about doing,” Washington says. “I don’t need to talk about it, because I am usually about to do it.”

That includes re-upping with director Spike Lee for another Inside Man heist flick. The first one received decent notices and a solid box office of $184 US globally.

Washington admits he rarely rejects an offer from his director friend, which has worked out nicely for the actor and director.

Their relationship has inspired both of them since the beginning, with 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues, then 1992’s Malcolm X, which earned Washington another Academy Award nomination for his title role, followed by 1998’s He Got Game.

Director Tony Scott knows a little bit about the Washington persona, too, having directed the actor to great success in 1995’s Crimson Tide, 2004’s Man On Fire and 2006’s Deja Vu.

Right after Deja Vu, he did the crime saga American Gangster with Tony’s brother Ridley Scott. “I must be the first person in the business to work with Tony Scott and Ridley Scott in the same year,” says Washington.

Still, Lee puts him in his comfort zone. In 2005, their collaboration on Inside Man let them pick up where they had left off, with impressive results. Washington remembers having to be a quick study for Inside Man as he was just wrapping his Broadway run of Julius Caesar.

“I had about five days off in between,” says the actor, who admits he probably wouldn’t have pushed himself for any other filmmaker.

For Inside Man 2, it will be more of the same trust. And Lee and Washington will continue to borrow from each other’s instincts.

SynopsisStarring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals, Evan Jones, the film revolves around a lone warrior (Washington) who must fight to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption. Oldman plays the despot of a small makeshift town who’s determined to take possession of the book Eli’s guarding.

A successful financial executive (Eddie Murphy) has more time for his BlackBerry than his seven-year-old daughter (Yara Shahidi). When he has a crisis of confidence and his career starts going down the drain, however, he finds the solution to all his problems in his daughter’s imaginary world.

New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber’s (Denzel Washington) ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train. Ryder (John Travolta), a criminal mastermind and leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train’s passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour.

As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages. But there’s one riddle Garber can’t solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

Academy Award winners DENZEL WASHINGTON as gangster Frank Lucasand RUSSELL CROWE as outcast cop Richie Roberts team to tell the true juggernautsuccess story of a cult hero from the streets of 1970s Harlem

American Gangster arrive in theaters this Friday November, 2nd. But if you’re like us and simply can’t wait, we have this great interview with the principle actors (Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe) and director, Ridley Scott.

It’s hard not to like Tony Scott. Even though he may have single-handedly generated our fascination with filmmaking style over substance, he still created a memorable — nay, classic — body of work, and proved that even folks like Michael Bay can mature over time (albeit in admittedly microscopic measures). His latest film, Déjà Vu, is sort of a hybrid of the two impulses that have defined his career thus far: unrelenting visual excess and a tenuous relationship with actual human feeling. Starring Scott’s longtime leading man Denzel Washington, the film transcends the superficial appeal of its core concept — what if you could go back in time? — and actually offers a thoughtful, moving and genuinely exciting thriller that will likely serve as terrific counterprogramming for the Oscar bait and family fare releasing in the weeks to come.

Washington plays Doug Carlin, an ATF agent who inadvertently finds himself drawn into a murder mystery while investigating the explosion of a New Orleans ferryboat. Recovering the body of one of the supposed victims, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), Carlin takes not only professional but personal notice of the young woman’s… attributes. Before long, he determines that she may be the key to discovering the terrorist’s identity. Thankfully, a cadre of technology-wielding federal agents (including Val Kilmer and Adam Goldberg) offer the agent a unique opportunity to revisit Claire’s life. But Carlin is soon forced to decide whether cracking the case is more important than saving one woman’s life — especially if he has unexpectedly developed feelings for that woman, and knows what will eventually happen to her.

While we’ve seen quite a cross-section of cops and authority figures from Washington over the course of his career, Carlin feels like the most comfortable of these he’s yet played — the actor no longer seems determined to prove or insist upon his leading-man status. In a film like this where the chemistry between the star and his leading lady is reliant on their ability to overcome the technological backdrop, the hairpin storytelling and most of all the fact they barely have any actual screen time together, Washington carries the growing attraction effortlessly. It’s a testament to his performance that the film hardly ever feels like a sci-fi odyssey or any sort of high-concept adventure.